Burbank police officers investigating a rumor that a truant teenager was planning to "shoot up" Bellarmine-Jefferson High School five years ago were justified in invading the student's family home without a warrant because of concerns that violence was imminent, theU.S. Supreme Courtruled Monday.

The unanimous, unsigned decision by the high court served as fresh censure of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, with which the justices are frequently at odds. A three-judge panel of the appeals court had ruled, 2-1, against granting immunity to four Burbank Police Department officers who entered the home without a warrant.

Vincent Huff, a student at the private Catholic high school at the time of the 2007 incident, had been subjected to bullying and had been absent for two days when police were alerted by school authorities to "a rumor about a letter" in which the student had allegedly warned of an attack on the school.